


Fine

by EdgarAllenPoet



Category: Ouran High School Host Club - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Call This Rich Kid Therapy, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Daddy Issues Group Chat, Do any of the hosts have good parents?, Gen, Parent-Child Relationship, Yoshio Ootori has made some questionable choices, more at five
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:40:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25818217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EdgarAllenPoet/pseuds/EdgarAllenPoet
Summary: "Someone outside of the family with a non-Ootori perspective couldn't possibly begin to understand the functioning of their family system.The Ootori children were born with extreme legacy, and thus extreme burden.  They had a name to live up to.  They had standards to meet.  A man as powerful as Yoshio Ootori could not have subpar children."--The Host Club's thoughts about Yoshio & Kyoya, as well as about their own families.
Relationships: Ooroti Kyouya & Ootori Yoshio
Comments: 3
Kudos: 56





	Fine

**Author's Note:**

> I was thinking about Kyoya, and then about Honey and his "you shouldn't hit someone with glasses" comment. 
> 
> Honey is an extremely skilled martial artist, from a family who is known for it. Do you ever think about what his home life looks like? Martial arts families tend to be a bit... intense. (if the manga touches on this, forgive me, i haven't read it through yet).

Kyoya was not abused. 

He refused to entertain any notion suggesting otherwise. Someone outside of the family with a non-Ootori perspective couldn't possibly begin to understand the functioning of their family system. The Ootori children were born with extreme legacy, and thus extreme burden. They had a name to live up to. They had standards to meet. A man as powerful as Yoshio Ootori could not have subpar children. 

They knew this. From the time they were old enough to grasp reason, they all understood this. Or, at least, Kyoya did. He assumed his brothers had from a young age as well. Couldn't imagine them growing up to be the way they were, growing up with their father, without having that same understanding. He knew Fuyumi understood it. She didn't conceal her bitterness nearly as well as she thought she did. 

But they were not abused. They had anything they could ever think to ask for, the best schools and fine clothes, they were always fed, they had servants attending their needs, and their father was persistently checking up on them, keeping tabs. 

No. Kyoya was not abused. 

Anybody who suggested otherwise could not possibly begin to understand. 

  
\--

"You should never hit someone who wears glasses!" Honey had exclaimed, at a loss due to what he had just witnessed, searching for really anything to say. 

"Uh," the twins chimed in. "I don't think it's really about that." 

But no, Honey thought to himself, that is what he had meant to say. Striking someone who's wearing glasses was dangerous for a number of reasons. You could harm yourself, first and foremost, with the frame's materials. You could harm your target in the same way. The glasses could break, they could cut the both of you. You had to be careful about broken glass. And breaking the glasses was an inconvenience and an expense. 

There were no glasses allowed on the mat in the dojo. Students took them off before entering, and they either got contact lenses to aid their vision or learned to fight blind. The Haninozuka's actually encouraged the latter, saying that if you had a weakness you had better learn to cope with it, rather than try and coddle it. 

If you couldn't see, you couldn't see, but you'd better learn to fight that way. 

Honey had learned that lesson well. He'd always been small, and they hadn't expected him to grow much past five foot. That didn't mean he didn't train against larger opponents. You learn to move quicker, use your advantages, fight smarter. Smaller stature came with smaller muscles. That didn't mean easier targets. It meant he broke the hardest level boards in spite of it, meant he trained twice as hard, meant he learned to compensate. His voice was naturally high, naturally light. That meant he learned to force authority into it when needed, meant he learned to command with it, not despite it. 

Honey wasn't sure what had happened between Kyoya-chan and his father. He knew that it didn't seem fair, but he also knew that nothing ever was, really. You work harder, you get stronger, you learn to deal with things. Once, when Honey had whined about the injustice of his condition, his father had forced him to hold a plank for hours. Every time he failed, he doubled the time required to be free. Over, and over, failure heaped upon failure. "Life wasn't fair," he said. "You have no choice but to deal with it." 

He respected Kyoya-chan, who had obviously learned to deal with it in his own way. Moving with the strike was smart, allowing it to take him down would result in less damage than trying to push back against it. Replacing his glasses, keeping a steady gaze, all obviously well-learned coping mechanisms. 

Things weren't fair, so Kyoya-chan buckled down and worked harder than anyone Honey had ever met. He acted cleverly, used situations to his advantage, always considered the profit to be gained. 

Regardless, you should never hit someone who was wearing glasses. While Honey scowled after the elder Ootori and considered what had happened, he couldn't help but judge the blatant recklessness of the action. It could have really done some harm, and you don't harm someone without needing to.

  
\---

  
Yoshio Ootori didn't always hit. 

In fact, it was rather seldom. The Ootori children rarely stepped out of line far enough to require it. It was a last resort thing, a loud and clear "you are out of line." It brought the situation to an immediate halt. It stopped the bothersome behavior. It reoriented the axis of control. 

But it was rarely necessary. 

Kyoya had meant it when he said he'd been expecting it for some time. The past few weeks his father had been tense. Tenser than was usual. All clipped words and waved off conversations. Kyoya was treading lightly, speaking when spoken to and otherwise staying out of the way. He had plenty of business to attend to with his studies and with the student fair, and any attempts at offering his assistance with his father's business only made his father's face tighten dangerously.

He kept to himself. 

The fair was just poor timing, but there was no helping it. His father had known the date of the event, and with the Host Club's success, they'd earned themselves a legitimate role in the fair. It would be unfitting for the father of the vice-president not to attend, especially when everyone else's parents intended to, and Yoshio Ootori knew the importance of appearances.

Which was why the slap was rather surprising. 

It was not nearly the first time Kyoya had been hit, but it was the first time he'd been hit so publically. Once, when he was about eleven years old, he'd gotten into a rather heated argument with his father. Immaturity and pride and pre-adolescent emotionality all came crashing to the surface at some stuffy, prestigious dinner party with one of his father's colleagues. Yoshio had ushered him calmly out of the banquet hall and into a private room quite a ways away, and thrashed him so soundly that Kyoya hadn't been able to keep himself from crying. He had then summoned a driver to take Kyoya back to their estate and ordered a maid to see that he made it to bed, and he returned to the party by himself.

Kyoya had never needed a repeat of that lesson. 

He'd thought he wouldn't need a repeat of this one. It had been quite a while since he had been hit. Well over a year. Becoming friends with Tamaki had been tumultuous, and starting a club even more so, but Kyoya quickly adapted and assured that any frustrations he was having in his own personal life never made it back to his father. Letting Yoshio hear about a rather loud and disruptive argument with Tamaki on school grounds had been entirely a lack of self-control and emotional regulation. He could do better. 

And he did. 

He had. 

Until now. 

  
\---

  
Tamaki's father didn't respond to emotional displays, and trust him, Tamaki had tried. Shouting and complaining and pleading and sulking and arguing all earned him the same even, blank stare. Sometimes a heavy sigh. If he really went to town with it, he might get a lecture about proper behavior. About maturity. 

Joyous expressions of emotion received much the same response. Any laughter that was too loud, smiles that were too wide, and dancing or leaping or shouting excitedly, all met with the even, blank stare. Occasionally a sigh. Often, a brief lecture about growing up and acting correctly. 

Once, at Christmas time-- Tamaki's mother was jewish, he'd been raised jewish, but his Grandmother wouldn't hear of it-- he'd grinned politely at a simple gift he'd received, and his father had looked proud. 

Small displays, then. Careful actions. Delicate. Poise. 

Tamaki knew how to behave properly, knew to be proper and quiet and polite. He considered himself an expert at being charismatic, and making people happy and comfortable, at being an excellent host. 

There was no hosting his father. 

Tamaki was certain that, had his father not been the superintendent of the school, he wouldn't have even known about the school fair. Tamaki had put it on the calendar-- a brightly colored calendar he found in a nice little stationary store, with stickers and plenty of room for an entire family to organize their business on it (Tamaki was the only one who used it)-- but he doubted anyone even looked at it. 

The fact that his grandmother showed up was a shock and a half, but her behavior within the event itself was not. There was absolutely no pleasing her. That didn't mean Tamaki was allowed to stop trying. 

What did surprise him was that his father seemed so familiar with Tamaki. Tamaki had spoken of her-- of course he did-- but he hadn't thought his father had listened. And okay, yes, he ought to be familiar with her at least marginally, since he was the one funding the scholarship allowing her to attend this school anyways, but that was all professional. He seemed personally interested in her. 

Well, good, Tamaki thought. Haruhi was amazing. His father ought to be interested.

It was refreshing to see his father interested in anything, though Tamaki wasn't quite delusional enough to let himself believe that he knew of Haruhi because Tamaki had spoken of her. He knew better than that. He never listened.

But with what happened between Kyoya and his father-- which was not the first time, certainly, Tamaki knew Kyoya's father was an insufferable and unempathetic man-- Tamaki couldn't help but think to himself a single, guilty thought. 

Maybe, he thought to himself, as Kyoya brushed him off and excused himself from the room, and Yoshio Ootori crossed the ballroom with all of the hosts staring, gobsmacked. 

Maybe, Tamaki thought to himself, it wasn't so terrible being ignored.

  
\---

The twins' mother hadn't shown up, then again, they hadn't invited her. 

Then again, she wouldn't have shown up anyways, even if they had. 

Kaoru had wanted to, but Hikaru talked him out of it. It wasn't worth it. She was too busy, and why would they want her to start showing up to these things now? She hadn't bothered to attend any sort of school function for them since elementary school. And, yeah, alright, middle school ceremonies hardly counted as important, and it wasn't like they'd gone through them alone. The other kids had their parents and families watching from the audience and congratulating them afterwards. The twins had had each other. 

And now they had the Host Club, and personally, Hikaru didn't want his mother involved with it. She wouldn't understand, first of all. She was very much a modern woman. She had no time for the idle fantasies of young maidens. She would think it was silly. 

She had more important things to do. Hikaru knew that. He didn't care. 

Besides, they hadn't seen their mother in... it had to have been going on three weeks, now. Her business took her away often, travelling all over the place for meetings and shows and important events. When they were on holiday from school, she would often offer to take them with her. Since they'd been in high school, they had all but stopped accepting. 

It was easier to handle being ignored when you weren't in the same room as the person doing it. 

They would fill her in later, anyways. Kaoru would write her one of those emails, or she would take them out to dinner once she returned to Japan, tell them all about her travels and the company and her new ideas, and ask them about their time while she was away.

It always felt silly, telling her about their activities, when she was so busy with everything else. 

But their mother was nice. Hikaru couldn't remember a time when she'd shouted at them, couldn't remember her ever getting upset, and she certainly hadn't ever hit them. She was amazing. She let them do whatever they wanted, and she left them up to their own devices. She always looked happy to see them, despite how little time there was for that. 

No, he didn't worry himself with daydreams about what it would be like to have their mother at this silly school event. He felt absolutely no melancholy feelings watching the others interact with their parents and families. 

His mother wouldn't have liked it, anyways. Tamaki's family was terrible-- they'd all known that, knew that his grandmother was a literal ice queen, and his father, well. Any school superintendent wasn't expected to be pleasant. 

Kyoya's father was a surprise, but not a terribly shocking one. For all the shadow king thought they were idiots, Hikaru wasn't a total dud at reading people. Or. Kaoru had an alright eye for reading people, and he filled Hikaru in. He'd reasoned there had to be a reason Kyoya-senpai was so serious, so controlled, so particularly evil.

So no, Hikaru pushed all thoughts of his mother out of his mind. He didn't worry about that. Instead, he decided he'd spend a few moments worrying about Kyoya.

  
\---

  
Kyoya didn't care that he'd gotten hit. There was no use in it. It wasn't any sort of problem, and he wasn't actually hurt. He was-- he spared himself a moment of investigation in the mirror, prodding gently and wincing at the touch. Alright. He was bruised slightly, but a bruise was nothing to waste emotions over. He could just as easily get a bruise by bumping his shin or getting tackled by Tamaki. It wasn't anything to concern himself over. 

So no, Kyoya didn't care that he'd gotten hit. 

He wasn't pleased that he'd gotten hit with an audience, and his father's words were doing nothing to soften that blow to his ego. Right there, in front of not only his friends, but the club's guests as well. 

At school Kyoya was well-respected. He was vice-president of an extremely successful club, he was top of his class, he was always poised and collected. He was an example, and a businessman, and a force to be reckoned with.

And he'd just gotten punished like a child in front of everyone. 

Kyoya clenched his fists and his jaw and his eyes, took a few tense breaths in through his nose and out through his teeth, shooed away the wave of nausea that churned in him. It was humiliating. It was disgraceful. He'd worked so hard, put in so much energy, used so much skill, and his father just--

No. 

There was no use getting upset. There was an event to run and guests to reassure and a room full of people who... who might not notice of Kyoya were to sneak away.

But his father would notice, and Kyoya couldn't give him that satisfaction. Tamaki would notice, and Kyoya didn't want to deal with that. He had a feeling he'd already have plenty of Tamaki to deal with, when the festivities were over. The other hosts might notice, and they were already pitying him, which made him want to lock himself away in shame.

He had to go back out there. 

There was no use being upset. 

Kyoya was not upset. 

Anyone who suggested otherwise was delusional.

  
\---

Haruhi was five years old when she first saw her father cry. She hadn't understood it then, had been too young. She just knew that her mother was gone, and her father was sad. 

That would be a continuing theme throughout her upbringing. 

Ranka handled Kotoko's death better than he could have, certainly, but still not very well. He was emotional. Weepy. He gave in to drinking frequently, and he pushed his feelings onto Haruhi. He'd needed someone, anyone, to pick up the pieces. Even if that someone was five-- eight-- twelve-- fifteen years old. He'd needed support, and well, Haruhi had always been rather proud of her skill at that. 

Her mother was unshakeable. She was strong. Kotoko was never surprised and never disgruntled. Haruhi wanted to be like her. She wasn't sure how well she succeeded, but she knew when it came to her father, she was at least well-practiced.

He needed somebody he could vent to. He needed a shoulder to cry on. He needed a voice of reason. 

Haruhi could handle that. 

Besides, it all prepared her quite well for dealing with the host club. She wondered, sometimes, when she would be free from looking after boys with softer constitutions than her own. Then she considered that, pleasant as that may be, she would probably get rather bored.

She didn't mind it, at the end of the day. There were more good days than bad-- with the club and with her father. And her father had always been good to her. He'd always done all the things a father was supposed to do. He kept her fed and clothed, he paid the rent and the utilities, he helped encouraged her to apply for Ouran. He hardly ever interrupted her studying.

If he needed extra help, then it was fine. 

If he came home drunk from time to time, it didn't matter. 

If Haruhi needed to be the strong one, well. She was built for it. 

Still, the fair had left her shaken in ways she hadn't been expecting. So many things were happening, so many things might be changing, and well. 

Well, Haruhi personally wanted to throw hands with Yoshio Ootori.

So, because of all of that and everything else, when Haruhi returned home from school that day she did something she hadn't done in years. Something she had rarely done before. She sat next to her father and threw her arms around him, laid her head against his shoulder and let him hold her for a moment. 

It was foreign, and not entirely comforting, but that didn't matter. Haruhi was grateful for him.

**Author's Note:**

> now you might be thinking-- "but what does Mori think of all this?" 
> 
> Well the problem is, i don't have a single clue. If ya'll have any ideas, let me know and i'll add him in. but i'm phoning a friend on this one. i can't get into Mori's head well enough for that.


End file.
